A Caterham is one of the purest expressions of automotive driving heaven. The tiny, bare-bones British sports car is a nimble, open-air, lightweight machine that leaves you fully engaged in the act of driving. It's the sports car distilled to its basics. So, for Jeremy Clarkson to call the Ford GT a "mad Caterham," it means the man is heaping massive praise on the latest supercar from the Blue Oval.

Clarkson spent some quality time with the new Ford while filming for the new season of the Amazon Prime series "The Grand Tour." While he, like many of us, felt that the GT could be a bit soft due to the lack of a shouty eight-cylinder engine, he found out how wrong he was.

After all, it's hard to go wrong with a 3.5-liter twin-turbocharged V-6 engine that produces 647 horsepower and 550 pound-feet of torque. Unless, of course, you're upset that it guzzles more gas than a Viper V-10.

Caterham Seven SuperSprint

Caterham Seven SuperSprint

While the Ford GT is nowhere near as lightweight as anything from the Caterham stable, it certainly offers up far more power. Clarkson must be enamored with the delivery of said power and also the steering feedback filtered through the tiller on the GT. Steering that communicates to the driver exactly what the tires are doing is one of the hallmarks of the Caterham.

The Ford GT can do the same thing. It can just do it with outrageous looks and tremendous power on tap. A mad Caterham, indeed. 

The new season of "The Grand Tour" is available on Amazon Prime now.